Tuesday, October 15, 2013

Bit by Bit - Chapter 22, Part 21

Trey Smith

The grand marshal's buckle maker was eighty years old, yet he had not lost the tiniest part of his old dexterity. The grand marshal said, "What skill you have! Is there a special way to this?"

"I have a way. From the time I was twenty I have loved to forge buckles. I never look at other things - if it's not a buckle, I don't bother to examine it."

Using this method of deliberately not using other things, he was able over the years to get some use out of it. And how much greater would a man be if, by the same method, he reached the point where there was nothing that he did not use! All things would come to depend on him.

~ Burton Watson translation ~
If we viewed the totality of our lives with the same focus as the buckle maker, what could truly befell us?

To view the Index page for this series, go here.

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